Optical communication systems are becoming more predominant in the telecommunication industry. In optical communication systems, the optical alignment of sources, connectors, detectors and other optical elements is important to the efficient operation of such systems. Prior alignment systems are not believed to be suitable for numerous closely spaced optical signals.
The alignment and optimization of optical elements can be degraded due to any one of a number of reasons, such as without limitation assembly produced tolerance, temperature effects and thermal mismatching, and environmental conditions such as vibration. Misalignment or the failure to initially, periodically and/or continuously optimize the relative alignment may entirely destroy an optical link, or produce unacceptably high bit errors.
As data transfer and other communications systems will continue to require more bandwidth and more highly parallel optical systems are further developed, a reliable and robust system to align and/or optimize the alignment of such optical communication systems will be desired.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a new adjustable optical chip micromachine coupling system.